So complex is the Island of Hawai‘i that no nickname embraces all of it at once. Call it the “Orchid Island” for the wild purple blossoms that grace the roadsides. Call it the “Volcano Island,” for half of it is alive with myriad fissures steaming and mountains eager to erupt. But also call it “The Big Island” for it is so huge that each of its five districts are larger than any other island in the chain.

The youngest island in the Hawaiian chain at 800,000 years, the Big Island emerged from the sea when five massive volcanoes erupted and created a wide range of terrain, climate and scenery. There are said to be thirteen climatic regions on earth, and the Big Island has all but two, the Arctic and the Saharan.

First contact with a non-Pacific civilization occurred in 1527 when a Spanish vessel wrecked off the coast of Ke‘ei in south Kona. Survivors were the ship’s captain and his sister who both inter-married with native Hawaiians and founded a line of chiefs. Hawai‘i was also visited by Juan Gaetano in 1555 when he charted the islands and gave them Spanish names.

It seems that the beautiful young goddess, from a large family of gods, was struck by wanderlust. Tucking her young sister, who was conveniently in the form of an egg, under her armpit, she set out to see the world. Fortune had its ups and downs for young Pele. For one, she was ravished by a real swine, Kama Pua‘a the pig god. Moreover, she fought desperately with her sister, Namaka o Kahai, over the love of a handsome young chief, with her sister stalking Pele and eventually smashing her bones on the Hana coast of Maui.

Pulling herself back together, Pele set out to make a love nest for her lover and herself and chose the fire pit at Kilauea Volcano. Pele has also been known to change her form from a withered old woman to a ravishing beauty or a white dog, as her moods can change from gentle to fiery hot.

The rangers at Volcanoes National Park receive hundreds of stones every year that were taken as souvenirs only to be returned by distraught tourists, who claim to have been plagued with bad luck from the day they removed Pele’s sacred stones. And, no one who has lived in the islands for any length of time will carry pork over the volcano at night, lest they offend the goddess. She’s perhaps still angry with that swine, Kama Pua‘a.

Early European visitors were proud to offer gifts of domesticated animals to Kamehameha to raise and eat. Unfortunately, after ten years the feral herds were ravaging cultivated farmlands from coast to coast. In 1809, a young New England American named John Palmer Parker offered to round up the animals in exchange for a homestead. Kamehameha gave him two acres and the Parker Ranch dynasty began. Today, Parker Ranch consists of over 224,000 acres of pasturelands and is one of the largest privately owned ranches in the United States.

Major resort areas are Kailua-Kona, Hualalai, Kohala and Hilo.

Big Island residents treasure their heritage and it’s easy to see evidence of ethnic pride everywhere…in the food, customs, architecture, language, arts and crafts, and lifestyle.